12. Chapter 12
Farmer Pederson’s kitchen, smelling of soup left to simmer too long and old banana peels, was a space tailored to one man and one man only.
While she imagined Jase’s apartment—which she only saw from the outside—was the sparse, puddle-jump resting stop of a solitary soul, the old farmhouse was a time capsule reeking of a home never left.
Though the dishes in his sink were minimal—the stock of a quiet breakfast eaten alone, plates undoubtedly licked clean by the dog standing level with Lindsey’s chest—the farmer’s kitchen was cluttered to the point of hoarding, with only a single chair at the table free of newspapers and old copies of Reader’s Digest. This was a man rooted.
Unlike Jase, who wore impermanence the way some men wore cologne.
The farmer shuffled in dirt-caked boots to a wooden hutch buried under a decade of dust at the back of the kitchen and plucked a Polaroid from the top shelf and handed it to Lindsey.
As faded with time as the curtains filtering the afternoon sun through the window above the sink, Farmer Pederson, forty years younger and still in overalls, stared up from the yellowed surface beside a beautiful woman in a black leather jacket with unruly auburn hair.
“She was one heck of a lady.” He chuckled. “I only knew her five minutes and I asked her to marry me.”
Lindsey smiled and passed the picture to Jase, who hadn’t said a word since Farmer Pederson invited them inside.
“Proposed in front of her hubby too,” the farmer said. “Aw, but he wasn’t worried. I had a full head of hair back then and still wasn’t much to look at. How is your mom?”
Jase handed the Polaroid back to Farmer Pederson. “She died almost thirty years ago.”
The farmer’s face fell. He stuffed the Polaroid into one of his many pockets and said, “Oh my. What a shame. I kind of hoped she’d come strolling up the driveway one day, when she got tired of riding on the back of that cycle. How’d it happen, if you don’t mind me being curious?”
“She, ah—” Jase tapped his fingers on the corner of the table. “She was pregnant and something went wrong. She didn’t make it. The baby didn’t either.”
The hint of raw emotion in his voice surprised her, and Lindsey’s first instinct was to reach out and touch his arm.
She went with her second instinct, which was to smooth Tiny’s fur and keep a respectable distance from the man who admitted he didn’t want to know her unless she was free for a ride.
“An awful, awful shame,” the farmer said. “What about your pop?”
This wound was fresher, and when Jase’s fingertips threatened to dent the Formica tabletop, Lindsey said, “He passed a few weeks ago. Cancer.”
Farmer Pederson stared at Jase, his lips a thin line. “You kids want a beer?”
He produced cans of Old Style from the ancient green fridge. “It’s really too bad about your folks,” he said after a few glugs. “What brings you all the way out here?”
“My dad sent us on this trip, sort of as his last request. We ran out of gas just up the road.”
“You know, the more I look at you, I feel like I’m conversing with ghosts. Kind of uncanny, really. If you were wearing headbands and leather, I’d swear I was looking at your ma and pop.”
“Oh, we’re not—” Lindsey started to say.
“You on cycle?” the farmer asked.
“No,” Jase said. “Dad got us an old car for the drive.”
“A car? What kind of sense does that make?”
“There are three of us,” Jase explained. “Me, my brother, and this is my brother’s girlfriend.”
Farmer Pederson studied Lindsey with a crooked smile. She held out her hand and he shook it.
“It’s Lindsey,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”
“You mean this isn’t your girl?” the farmer asked Jase.
“No, sir.”
“Letting a lady run around with you, your brother’s either a confident sort of fellow, or a complete nincompoop.”
Jase chuckled. “You should tell him that.”
“He wanted to stay with the car,” Lindsey offered.
“Nincompoop,” the farmer scoffed. “Say, did you say you kids ran out of gas?”
“Yeah,” Jase said.
The farmer considered this, then said, “I think there’s more than three of you on this here trip.”